Here are six degrees of separation between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton:
1. Fast Track and TPP
Clinton has not taken a stand
on granting President Obama so-called “fast track” authority to
negotiate a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership. Nor has she taken a
clear stand with regard to the TPP itself. As secretary of state,
however, she referred to the TPP as the “gold standard in trade agreements.” Now, her campaign says, she is “watching closely” as the TPP fight evolves.
Sander is a leading opponent of NAFTA-style “free trade” deals. He says,
“All Americans, regardless of political ideology, should be opposed to
the ‘fast track’ process which would deny Congress the right to amend
the treaty and represent their constituents’ interests.” He has rallied
workers and environmentalists against the deal, saying, “Let’s be clear:
the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a
global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and
Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights;
dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial
laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international
tribunals rather than our own court system.”
2. “Medicare for All”
No one is more identified with healthcare
reform than Hillary Clinton. Yet, during the presidency of Bill Clinton,
she rejected proposals that the United States follow the lead of other
developed countries and create what is often referred to as a “Medicare
for All” system. She knows healthcare issues well but continues to be an
incremental reformer. Clinton says, “I never seriously considered a single payer system.”
Sanders has for many years sponsored an American Health Security Act,
which would “guarantee healthcare as a human right and provide every
U.S. citizen and permanent resident with healthcare coverage and
services through a state-administered, single-payer program.”
3. Amending the Constitution to Get Corporate Money Out of Politics
Clinton earned a lot of notice, and justifiably so, when she said in Iowa,
“We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get
unaccountable money out of it once and for all—even if it takes a
constitutional amendment.”
Sanders is already there. He says it will take a constitutional amendment, and he has sponsored one that declares:
“Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power
of Congress and the States to protect the integrity and fairness of the
electoral process, limit the corrupting influence of private wealth in
public elections, and guarantee the dependence of elected officials on
the people alone by taking actions which may include the establishment
of systems of public financing for elections, the imposition of
requirements to ensure the disclosure of contributions and expenditures
made to influence the outcome of a public election by candidates,
individuals, and associations of individuals, and the imposition of
content neutral limitations on all such contributions and expenditures.”
4. Patriot Act
As the US senator from New York, Hillary Clinton voted for the Patriot Act
in 2001. Later, to her credit, Clinton backed calls for an
investigation of whether President Bush signed an executive order in
2002 that approved of domestic spying without oversight from the courts.
“The balance between the urgent goal of combating terrorism and the
safeguarding of our most fundamental constitutional freedoms is not
always an easy one to draw,” she said.
“However, they are not incompatible, and unbridled and unchecked
executive power is not the answer.” Still later, however, she voted for
reauthorization of the act.
Along with Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold,
Sanders (then a member of the House) voted against the Patriot Act in
2001. He also opposed its reauthorization in 2006 and 2011. “As one of
the few members of Congress who consistently voted against the Patriot
Act, I expressed concern at the time of passage that it gave the
government far too much power to spy on innocent United State citizens
and provided for very little oversight or disclosure,” says Sanders. “Unfortunately, what I said turned out to be exactly true.”
5. Iraq War
As the US Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton voted in 2002 to authorize President Bush to prepare for military action against Iraq.
Sanders voted against the authorization of the use of military force. (Notably, another Democratic prospect, Chafee, voted “no” as a liberal Republican senator from Rhode Island.)
6. Democratic Socialism
No matter what her right-wing critics might claim, Hillary Clinton is not a socialist. (Her thoughtful college thesis
on organizer Saul Alinsky mentioned five-time Socialist Party
presidential candidate Eugene Debs, but only in the company of Walt
Whitman and Martin Luther King as an American who “embraced the most radical of political faiths—democracy.”)
Sanders is, arguably, America’s best-known
democratic socialist. Like authors Gloria Steinen and Barbara
Ehrenreich, scholar and voting-rights champion Frances Fox Piven, United
Farm Workers leader Dolores Huerta, and many others,
Sanders identifies with what Ehrenreich refers to as “the tradition
carried on by Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and
thousands more.” Sanders says,
“[When] I talk about democratic socialism, what I’m saying is that I do
not want to see the United States significantly dominated by a handful
of billionaire families controlling the economic and political life of
the country. That I do believe that in a democratic, civilized society,
all people are entitled to health care as a right, all people are
entitled to quality education as a right, all people are entitled to
decent jobs and a decent income, and that we need a government which
represents ordinary Americans and not just the wealthy and the
powerful.”
